The year 2013 put an end to a dozen years of annual gold gains, and the metalís prospects for recovery in 2014 donít look great. Gold futures prices lost 28% in 2013, the first yearly loss since 2000 and the largest annual loss for gold futures since at least 1984, according to FactSet data tracking the most active contracts.
Itís a tough reversal for investors who hung onto the precious metal in hopes the forces that increased gold prices by seven times by its peak in 2011 from late 2000 ó the popularity of gold-backed exchange-traded funds, rising global wealth and worries about inflation ó would stoke demand for the natural resource for decades to come...............................................Full Article: Source